…Still, with some of the postmortem tidying work done in situations of colonization for the preservation of imperialism’s image, it was difficult to form an image of the emotional impact of these times.

Until I found the poets.

In a web article simply called “The Poetry of the Clearances” I found the voice of the people. I found the poets who personified the mist, who talked of it mourning for her lost sons. They wrote of the mist, who howled upon the mountains as it missed them.

Now I think that’s what I heard on that train in the highlands. When we passed the ferns and tree stumps, mushrooms and moss-capped stones, I think it was the soul of the mist I heard, crying about the heights for her children.

“What if the land misses its displaced people?” I scrawled and underlined three times.
What if, indeed…

So, while the mist longs for its displaced people,
this story is also for the olive trees,
and the old Moratuck river,
and the sands,
and the mountains,
who miss their own children,
and cry for them about the heights. 

Here’s to the poets, who cannot be silenced,
who remind us of the places,
we cannot return.